Beyond the Dashers News: Hockey East report: Week of January 11

Backcheck
For the ninth time on their 2009-10 schedule, the New Hampshire Wildcats perked up after temporarily trailing to stamp a victory in Friday’s Frozen Fenway game. With that, they padded a little more fluff on the best overall record (13-2-4) amongst any Hockey East inhabitants.

So what else is new? Well, on the other bench, where Northeastern valiantly preserved its sense of pleasure for having participated in the landmark outdoor game even when they could not preserve a 3-1 edge after 40 minutes, there sits another consolation prize in a better-now-than-later learning experience.

Uncannily enough, the Wildcats slapped NU with the same sort of wake-up call as the obsessive-defensive Huskies instilled to Providence prior Thanksgiving, deleting a 3-0 deficit after the opening frame en route to a startling 4-3 triumph. Two weeks thereafter, the desperate Friars sculpted another early multi-goal lead against UNH and, on their second try, trapped that lead securely by the head rather than the tip of the tail.

If whatever goes around really does come around, therefore, the season-long nationally-ranked Huskies may have departed Landsdowne Street back to Huntington Ave. with a useful gift card.

In the final games leading up to their month-long break, Northeastern’s dollar-a-day offense had trouble granting its celestial goaltending sufficient breathing room. Then, as a pair of shutouts via Leah Sulyma to start the New Year suggested, that problem was solved and even in the losing cause to New Hampshire, young guns such as Brittany Esposito and Casey Pickett are now implicitly in an ideal rhythm.

Except the Huskies were not tangling with a fellow national contender, let alone one as seasoned, deep, and well-rounded as the Granite State Goddesses until last Friday. As the end result diagnosed, the critical two-step ability to get a jump and keep a jump in an intensive, playoff-like battle is one of the last ingredients still missing from Northeastern’s tray.

Time will tell as to whether or not they have picked up that missing piece.

***
The Providence Friars’ promotional staff can make what it will of the program scraping out its 600th all-time win Saturday. But Win No. 601, a 3-0 triumph on Sunday that stamped a two-day sweep of Cornell University, is of far greater relevance to PC’s implicit and timely reawakening.

Granted, the Big Red roster was frightfully shriveled (12 skaters dressed) by three MLP Cup absences and one injury, and fatigue was an indisputable factor. But Cornell kept intact its nearly spotless disciplinary record and penalty kill –both tops in the nation- which, in turn, cooled off the Friars’ lately radiant power play (0-for-7 on the weekend after going 14-for-47 in its previous nine games).

Still, between Saturday’s 6-3 knockout and Sunday’s 3-0 decision, the Friars sprinkled layers of encouragement all over their stats sheet. They pole-vaulted their overall record past the .500 fence to 8-7-8. They stretched their active winning streak to a season-best three games and upped a carry-over unbeaten tear to 4-0-2. They morphed their interleague record to 4-4-4 and improved to 4-5-3 versus nationally-ranked adversaries.

Along the way, 17 out of 19 skaters to suit up for part or all of the series contributed at least one point and seven individuals who were previously in the red either pulled even or jumped into the black under the plus/minus heading.

***
Not unlike the Friars, Connecticut is off to a momentous, four-game unbeaten jumpstart to commence 2010. And they have just polished off a favorable 9-3-1 interleague record over the weekend, sweeping a two-game drop-in at Robert Morris by a combined 8-2 score.

Then again, we have seen this program assume a similar stature at this point of the season before. The Huskies were an identical 9-3-1 versus nonconference adversaries last season and 9-2-2 in that department the year prior. Both times, it all went to waste when they failed to extract enough from their conference cohabitants.

With that in mind, vital as it may be to sculpt a national reputation while one can, the battle is only half over with 12 Hockey East games and a fight to climb back into the league playoff picture still ahead.

Intriguingly enough, UConn starts off the remainder of its regular season with the first two programs it must clear from its path out of seventh place. A two-night stay at last-place Vermont is in store this weekend, after which Maine drops in at Freitas Ice Forum for a pair of key clashes.

As they ought to know all too well from recent history, true judgment is not passed on the Huskies until the climax of the WHEA pennant race. No better way to rev up the ignition for that push than to kick overwhelming ice chips in the face of the Black Bears and Catamounts, two teams just as desperate to shed their cellar-dweller label as the Huskies are to put an official stamp on their national relevance.

***
Vermont finally stopped its bleeding with a 2-1 victory in Part II of a weekend visit to Wayne State, thus compressing an acrid 0-9-1 skid active since November 11. Although, quite a few pints of ink had to be donated to the scoresheet as UVM won in scrappy, mass-penalty-kill fashion.

Not so surprisingly, the Catamounts were most indebted to tireless senior stopper Kristen Olychuck who, upon receiving a much-belated holiday gift of a two-goal lead in Saturday’s second period, repelled enough of the Warriors’ late barrage (11-4 shooting differential in the third) to salvage the win.

The Catamounts, fresh off a 5-2 Warriors’ lashing the day prior, had been juggling torches all day. They killed six penalties in the first 40 minutes and failed to pounce at an all-you-can-score buffet when WSU’s Veronica Laramee-Paquette took a five-minute major at 11:20 of the middle frame. Ultimately, Wayne bit into the 2-0 deficit on a carry-over power play 56 seconds into the third and proceeded to pelt Olychuck with six more man-up shots within the final five minutes.

On the whole, with a cumulative 21 infractions split between the two fairly undisciplined squads, Saturday saw only 23 minutes and 27 seconds of even-strength action and Vermont charged up 21 power play shots, though only one made it through (Chelsea Rapin at 8:10 of the first). By the same token, though, Olychuck pushed away 19 of the Warriors’ 20 total power play shots, keeping the game surprisingly defensive and granting the famished Catamounts a rare win.

At best, however, that winning effort bore as many educational elements as any hard-swallowed loss would. With nothing but a dozen conference games ahead and a gaping deficit separating them from the basement and the playoff bracket, the Catamounts need to cleanse their dust-riddled disk and fast.

***
For starters and on the surface anyway, little has changed at either women’s wing of the two Commonwealth Avenue rinks. Boston College, which went on respite after a 2-2 tie with Providence, resumed play Saturday with, lo and behold, a 3-3 knot with Yale, morphing their strange-looking record to 5-7-8. Rival Boston University, which began its New Year with a more favorable 4-1 triumph of the Bulldogs, followed up Sunday with another OK Corral shootout, specifically a 5-5 knot with Brown.

Extraordinarily, Sunday’s chemically reactive Terrier-Bear tangle was antithetical to the penalty-stocked, low-scoring Vermont-Wayne State game. Brown was flagged for an aggregate three minor infractions, Boston one, and referees Robert Hawkes and Robert Tisi ceased their whistle activity altogether after the halfway mark of the second period.

All the while, though, it was a near rerun of 2009-10 BU women’s hockey. Lovable piles of productivity around the enemy net, but enough drawbacks on the home front to negate that. After a scoreless first period, the Terriers outshot the Bears, 18-15, for the remainder of regulation and variously led 1-0, led 3-1, trailed 5-3 early in the third after Brown ran a three-goal-on-three-shots-in-three-minutes sugar rush, then pulled even again via Holly Lorms with 6:34 left and Melissa Anderson with 2:45 to spare.

Forecheck
UNH hasn’t touched its home rink in formal game-time attire since the rival Friars terminated their famed Hockey East home unbeaten streak. That shall on Saturday when Guess Who comes back to Durham.

Until the Wildcats resume their schedule this weekend, first place in the league is either Boston College’s of Northeastern’s to be had. For tonight at Matthews Arena, the Huskies will host the rubber game of its season series versus the Eagles, with whom it split a pair of 3-2 upshots at Conte Forum last semester.

Tuesday, January 5
Northeastern 4, Princeton 0
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wnoeprn1.j05
http://gonu.com/whockey/2010/wh10-18.shtml

Friday, January 8
Connecticut 4, Robert Morris 2
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wconrmu1.j08
http://www.uconnhuskies.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/010810aaa.html

Boston University 4. Yale 1
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wbu_yal1.j08
http://www.goterriers.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/010810aab.html

New Hampshire 5, Northeastern 3
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wnoeunh1.j08
http://www.unhwildcats.com/sports/wice/2009-10/releases/2010010863vzae
http://gonu.com/whockey/2010/wh10-19.shtml

Wayne State 5, Vermont 2
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wverwsu1.j08
http://www.uvm.edu/~sportspr/womens_hockey/?Page=News&storyID=15735